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The Truth AND Myth about Bamboo

I’m glad the cold weather we had last week is gone.  Low 30’s in south Tampa is cold enough for my tastes and our gardens.  Hopefully that will be it for threatening weather this winter.

This week I want to talk about bamboo.  The truth is I love growing bamboo in my yard.  I’ve got six varieties and when the winds up on Davis Islands it whistles through the bamboo just like a Polynesian jungle.  Bamboo is very easy to grow and relatively maintenance free.   With so many varieties available there’s no reason you shouldn’t.

The myths about bamboo are everywhere.  It will overtake my yard?  Kill everything and ruin my sidewalk and foundation?  It’s hard to grow and harder yet to get rid of.  

Bamboo is one of the easiest plants to grow.  The American Bamboo Society (ABS) states there are over 2000 varieties of bamboo in the world.  Bamboo is both decorative and extremely useful.  In many parts of the world it is food (tasty shoots); animal feed, the primary construction material for buildings and homes, and is used for making a great variety of useful objects from kitchen tools, to paper to dinnerware.  One web site I recently visited listed 386 uses for bamboo.  From A-framing your house (termites don’t like the taste) to modern zithers.  If you don’t know what a Zither is, it’s a musical string instrument, mainly used in folk and blue grass music. 

One of the neatest things about bamboo is that it is a grass.  That’s right, a grass, just like your St. Augustine lawn, just a lot bigger and a lot safer from chinch bugs (another topic all together).  Over the years, chinch bugs have devoured my lawns, but my bamboo - never.   Bamboo varies in size from a tiny dwarf variety that’s about 12 inches when fully grown (not your lucky bamboo - more about that later) to a huge monster which shoots up over 100 feet tall with a 10+ inch diameter stalks.  Bamboo grows throughout the world on mountains and valleys, but in the Far East it is more commercially used and grown than here in America. 

Bamboos are classified by the types of roots they have.  There are two major types of bamboo.  Runners and clumpers and here is where the major myth about bamboo comes to play.   Let’s talk about runners first. 

Runner type bamboo can spread like a bad case of poison ivy.  It sends out underground stems (rhizomes) anywhere and everywhere from which the new canes will grow.  If you’re not careful it could take over your yard. This is where most people have the myth that all bamboo is bad and you shouldn’t have it in your yard.  Luckily temperate bamboos are NOT usually runners.  They are usually clumpers, the other major type of bamboo.  

Clumping bamboos are generally tropical’s and are non-invasive. They grow in a habit similar to bananas, just a lot quicker.  Regardless of the degree of openness of each species’ clumping habit, none of the clumpers are considered invasive.  Unlike teenagers, they are all well behaved and will not spread wildly.

Taking care of bamboo is easy.  As I’m a firm believer in feeding my plants, any fertilizers (not weed-n-feed types) that are sold for grass would be appropriate.    One of the things I do is I’m done fertilizing my orchids; I spray the remaining fertilizer on my bamboo.  They love it!  They like water, but don’t like to sit in water. 

When the leaves fall, don’t rake them away from the plant.  They serve a double purpose.  It’s great mulch around the base of the plant and the leaves contain silica that the plant will need for future growth. 

Did you also know bamboo is allergy free, environmentally friendly, repels termites and is said to be superior in quality, and more durable than most hard wood timber floors?  It’s also edible, but not the flooring!  Bamboo flooring is becoming increasingly popular because it doesn’t react to water, as do some timbers, making it the ideal choice for wet areas in the home like the kitchen or the bathroom.  When I’m doing the dishes, it would sure come in handy.

Some of the more exotic varieties can be expensive to purchase.  The key is to start small and watch it grow.  There’s something to say about seeing a beautiful clump of blue bamboo or silverback waving in the wind.

Now about that lucky bamboo you have.  I hate to tell everyone this, but, if you bought “Lucky Bamboo,” “Chinese Bamboo,” “Curly Bamboo” or “Water Bamboo” the plant you bought isn’t bamboo at all.  Nope, it’s just a plant.  If it’s growing in a vase with just water and some rocks or marbles, it is a Dracaena.  When growing Dracaena use good clean pure water.  I don’t recommend tap water, but if you do at least let it sit out over night to help the chlorine and chloramines evaporate.   I recommend changing the water every 4 days, so you can see good water is important for these plants to do well.  Good lighting but not direct sun works best.  

In summary, “real” bamboo is a beautiful resource that is under utilized in our society.  I feel more people should grow it and use it in their homes.  If you love south Tampa and enjoy watching the grass grow; grow some of these “grasses”!  Bamboo one’s that is.